French papers are merciless in their assessment of the government's handling of the crisis. Le Monde says French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin "seems to have lost his nerve with his decision to restore rarely used legislation and decree a state of emergency". It argues that by resorting to "a law which was conceived during the 'Algerian troubles', one of the worst times in recent French public life, the decision shows that Dominique de Villepin still doesn't have what it takes to be a statesman".

Libération is indignant. It had hoped the "epidemic of violence" would subside and that imposition of a curfew would not fuel additional rage. But instead it says sarcastically the government's decision is "nice progress in the fight against the climate of fear, which confirms that Chirac's rule is a tragic farce".

Le Nouvel Observateur claims Villepin "will have risked fanning dangerous fantasies by making it easy to associate some of the rioting youths" with the Algerian militants that France fought in the 1950s and '60s.

Le Monde has even harsher words for French President Jacques Chirac. "This explosion of violence in the suburbs, this 'urban havoc', as General Charles de Gaulle might have said, amounts to an implacable acknowledgment of the failure of major promises made by Chirac," it writes.

As for the president's speech to the nation on Sunday night, it accuses him of offering nothing but "vague words, formulated haltingly".

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also critiques Chirac's performance. "Never before have we seen the French president, who appears to be in full command in any other situation, so helpless, so uncertain that he did not even know what to do with his hands," the paper writes.

Writing in the International Herald Tribune, a commentator notes the delicious irony of Chirac even uttering the word "justice".

"The crisis also touches on the aloofness of the French government and the double standards that surround it," the writer argues. "President Jacques Chirac is notorious for trying to foil investigations into his scandal-tainted financial past. Unsurprisingly, there were only guffaws when he warned rioters that France is a country where justice is firmly applied."

Spain's El Pais calls the rioting France's Hurricane Katrina. It says Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's emergency measures are a recognition "of the failure of a policy of economic, social, cultural and urban integration over the decades".

De Telegraaf writes in a commentary, "The arsonists and rioters are primarily interested in vandalism and crime and in outdoing each other when it comes to setting the most beautiful fire. The fact that their own people lose out makes no difference to these excited and bored youths."

A columnist in Trouw asks, "How can they scream for jobs and facilities and at the same time set fire to businesses that can give many of them employment? The very nature of the violence betrays an indiscriminate tendency to attack the rule of law."